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RHYMES OF OUR VALLEY 




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EHYMES OF OUR 
VALLEY 



BY 



ANTHONY EUWER 

With a Frontispiece and 

Decorations by the 

Author 



£3>m fork 

JAMES B. POND 

1916 

All rights reserved 



*iH» 



Copyright 1916 

By JAMES B. POND 

Published September, 1916 




,UB 12 1916 



CI.A438038 






/ ■ 



TO 

THE PEOPLE OF 

THE HOOD RIVER VALLEY 



For the privilege of using some of the rhymes in 
"Rhymes of Our Valley," the author wishes to thank 
COLLIER'S, The COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, LIFE, 
HARPER'S WEEKLY, The WOMAN'S HOME COM- 
PANION, The NATIONAL SUNDAY MAGAZINE, 
The NEW YORK TIMES, and the PHILADELPHIA 
NORTH AMERICAN. 



OUR VALLEY 

It may be that somewhere in this wide, wide 
world there is a more beautiful valley than 
ours, but we of our valley do not think so. 
Out there in the Oregon country it lies, land 
of the Columbia, whose towering walls have 
been twisted and carved into moss-flecked battle- 
ments and cathedral domes. Centuries ago, if 
we hark to the Indian legend, the beautiful 
stream was spanned by a gigantic archway of 
stone. It was called The Bridge of the Gods. 
In an ill-starred moment, with a quaking of 
the earth, it fell and was shattered into a thou- 
sand fragments. Where it fell, the river rolls 
today, tumbling and sprawling over scattered 
bulwarks of stone. To the east of these rapids, 
if you look toward the South, you will see 
thirty miles away the snowy summit of Mount 
Hood in the great volcanic chain of the Cascades. 

From mountain to river, enfolded in its 
canyon arms of Summer green, of Autumn 
arabesque or Winter snow, lies our valley. But 
yesterday it bristled with yellow pine and fir, 
with tamarac and cedar and chincapin, with 
impenetrable brush of maple, sage and willow. 
Today it is carpeted with rolling acres of or- 

7 



chard land, with berry-fields and little homes 
with rambling roofs and big, stone chimneys. 

From one of these little homes you will see 
the sun in the early morning, guilding the dome 
of Mount Ranier, one hundred and twenty miles 
to the North. And nearer still, but sixty miles 
away with snows of brighter gold, rises Mount 
Adams, its cliffs and valleys all defined; while 
seven miles of upland to the South, gleam the 
cold white snow-drifts of Mount Hood, looking 
so near you could take them in a leap. 

All day the song of the flume is in the 
fields, bearing its waters down from the glaciers 
and giving them out in a thousand rills to the 
thirsty earth. It is the antithesis of the stream, 
the flume, for it gives while the stream gathers. 
It is the artery, the stream the vein. When the 
day is done the great winged buzzards drop 
silently to rest upon the pine tree tops, the owl 
hoots from the timber, the full moon swings 
above the eastern range, and now across the 
clearing and over yonder on the hills, you hear 
the coyotes bark, bark, bark. 

And this is our valley, our valley which 
gives to you in such abundant measure its 
apples of crimson and gold; valley of God's 
sunshine and shadow, of man's smiles and tears. 

8 



CONTENTS 
RHYMES OF OUR VALLEY 

THE BLOOD IN THE APPLE 13 

THE SOUL OF THE AVERAGE MAN 17 

AN ORCHARD-MAN'S WIFE 21 

KA-ICHI 24 

A DRY MOOLY IN STRAWBERRY TIME 27 

OUR NOO VICTROLIE . 29 

AT THE SIGN OF THE WHITE RAG 32 

THE GAMBLERS 35 

WHEN FRANCES BRINGS HER VIOLIN 39 

THE GHOSTS OF MULTNOMAH 41 

THE BUZZARDS 44 

CEDRIC 46 

THE LAST STAND 48 

THE GLOMERS 50 
WHEN MOUNTAIN STREAMS ARE WHITE 

WITH SNOW 53 

DAYS OF THE YEAR 54 

OBSERVATIONS 56 

PLAY-FELLOW JOHN 59 

WHEN THE OUTSIDE PIG GETS COLD 62 

TOPSY CALF 65 

THE LITTLE RUNT 68 

OUR MOLLY COW 70 

9 



OUR DOG 


72 


MY COUSIN'S HOUSE 


76 


WHEN DAD GETS THE GRUMPS 


78 


CHORES 


80 


THE WAY TO BE GOOD 


82 


MY GROUCH 


84 


RHYMES AND.XIMER RHYMES 




THE DOODLEDOO 


86 


GETTIN' BORN 


87 


THE SAW-FISH 


88 


THE FISH 


89 


GOLDFISHES 


90 


MY FACE 


92 


THE CHIN 


92 


THE WAIST 


93 


THE HAIR 


93 


THE NECK 


93 


LONGEVITY 


93 


ECONOMY 


94 


AGILITY 


94 


VEGETARIAN 


94 


A LIMER-KICK 


94 


FROM THE TURKISH 


95 


PERSPECTIVE 


95 


DON'T 


95 


A LIMER-LEAK 


95 



IO 



II 










12 



THE BLOOD IN THE APPLE 

You city folk who night and day 

Loiter and stare along Broadway, 

And pausing by some fruiterer's shop, 

You city folk — do you ever stop 

To count the cost of those radiant wares, 

Spitzenburgs lucious and Anjou pears, 

Winter Banana and Gravenstien, 

Crimson and gold in their sun-washed sheen? 

Winds of the west their cheeks have fanned 

Down endless tracts of orchard land, 

Each nectar drop in that golden feast 

Was a drop of sweat from man and beast, 

The crimson there of deep, rich hue 

Had its complement in years of blue — 

The blue, blue awful first long years 

Of falt'ring hopes and cank'ring fears, 

Of wond'ring how in the name of God 

You're going to hold your piece of sod 

And go without the things you need 

And pay your help and buy your feed, 

While it all goes out and there's nothing comes 

in, 
And your credit's called when you're minus tin. 

'3 



You city folk, that fruit you see 
It wasn't by chance, you take it from me! 
Do you know what it is to clear your copse 
And fell your firs with a gang of Wops, 
And shoot your stumps and squatter rocks 
With dynamite at five a box, 
And yank your roots and fill your holes 
And drive the drag to level the rolls, 
While the dust and grime go filt'ring in 
Each leaky pore in your swelt'ring skin, 
And the fir bark splinters calmly glide 
Through the holes in your mits to your hands 

inside 
Which gives you something to blaspheme at 
When you've chisled the pitch from your hands 

with "Scat"?* 

Do you know what it is you city folk, 
To be consecrate to the ranchman's yoke? 
To wake with your hands all cramped and sore 
From the clutch on your ax the day before, 
Then crawl into the icy night 
Two hours before you glimpse the light, 
And make your way by a lantern's glow 
Out through the chill and driving snow 
*A soap-salve. 

*4 



To tend and feed the beasts that live 
By grace of what you choose to give. 
Till dawn unfolds familiar lines 
Of out-house roofs and snow-clad pines 
And when the last chore's done you say 
You're ready now to start the day. 

Do you know what the trees have weathered 

through 
That bore that golden fruit for you? 
Blight and mold, the dozen plagues 
That fly with wings and crawl with legs. 
Aphus, Weavels — marshalled in hosts 
Along each bough till they give up their ghosts 
In a sulphur-lime death-dealing drench 
Or a Black-leaf Forty's choking stench. 

Do you know the feel to find a tree 
That's reached a three year's growth, and see 
Its leaves all limp, its roots out clean — 
'Twas gophered there in the ground unseen. 
You can pull it out — no need to jerk 
When the Gophers quit their ghoulish work. 
At all their holes your traps are set 
And some you miss and some you get, 
But you might as well fish up the sea 

»5 



As trap a Gopher colony, 

For their dead have fathers, sisters, brothers, 

Uncles, aunts and hungry mothers, 

And every one of the cave-born brutes 

Is horribly fond of apple-roots. 

When they've gophered your tree, it's gone, 

that's all, 
You just forget it and plant next fall. 

Eight-inch dust and five-foot snow, 

You get them both where the apples grow, 

Toppling hopes and cank'ring fears 

To boost you along for seven years, 

Blight and plague and withering frost — 

Just reckon these when you count the cost 

Of that wonderful fruit you saw to-day 

As you stopped by the window along Broadway. 



16 



THE SOUL OF THE AVERAGE MAN 

What's that you say? Am I going back? 
Back — to the chaparral and the tamarack? 
Why the very fact that you ask it shows 
You've never been where the squaw grass grows, 
Where the fir boughs try their best to hide 
The snowy slopes of the mountain side, 
And the ghost ridge trees all ashen-white, 
Stretch their bony arms to the pale moonlight. 

You say you've read of the lure, the spell — 
The call of the West and all that — well, 
Then here's a hope that the good God may 
Show you the truth of it all some day. 
Like the tiger's lust for the blood once quaffed, 
Like the drunkard's thirst for the burning 

draught, 
Is the urge that tugs in your beating breast 
When you've turned once more to the beck'ning 

West. 

But mightier still than its clarion call 

Is the walloping bigness of it all, 

And you live the days when your eye swept clear 

From the slopes of Hood to old Ranier. 

*7 



Canyon on canyon — rock-ribbed piles, 

Rolling away for a hundred miles — 

And the gold of the sunset on leaf and branch 

Crowding your soul like an avalanche. 

And you want to say something to someone who 

Feels it and loves it as much as you ; 

Your horse tramps on at the close of day, 

There's a surge in your heart but all you say 

Is a muttered curse as you kick the stone — 

"What a Hell of a place to be alone !" 

There's a brand of folk who'd rather be 

Just solitaires in immensity, 

Who'd mortgage the rising moon until 

They'd glutted up to their selfish fill. 

But the soul, I think, of the average man 

Is built on a sort of a limited plan 

Which, when it's tasked to the over-much, 

It somehow gropes for a hand to clutch, 

And a chummy heart to understand 

When you say, "Gee Kid — but isn't it grand!" 

So I'm going back but not before 

I've strengthened my rigging a little more. 

I'm going back on the same old trip, 

But when I buy that long, pink strip, 

Folded and signed and stamped in blue, 

18 




I'm going to plank down the price for two, 
And we'll strike straight out for the same old 

trail 
By the canyon's rim where the wind's a gale, 
And I have a feeling that somehow she 
Will likely be standing close to me, 
And I'll probably say as I take her hand, 
"Gee Kid, just look — but isn't it grand!" 

Oh, the times I've pictured her hair blown free, 
On a little cayuse by the side of me, 
Jogging along through the yellow dirt 
With a slouch of a hat and a khaki skirt, 
And ever that ringing laugh of hers 
Echoing up through the arching firs. 

And that's just one of the things I see 
When I'm with the Kid and the Kid's with me ; 
And though she's a treat in her city clothes, 
With her dainty feet and her silken hose, 
What tickles me most is just to stare 
And think how she'll look when she gets out 
there. 

Yet should it chance that I had to stick 
In this walled corral of iron and brick, 

19 



raw 




I fancy we'd still find joy o' nights 

While the moon swung low o'er the Jersey 

heights, 
Or something sublime if we should go 
To Central Park or a movie show — 
For it's all in a life — the varied thrills, 
Streets of the city or western hills. 
It's all or nothing according to 
The pulsing something that answers you 
From the chummy heart and the little hand, 
When you say, "Gee Kid — but isn't it grand!' 9 



Nowhere is there a more diligent worker than the 
orchard man of the North West, unless it is the wife 
of the orchard man of the North West. He works 
so hard and becomes so soul-wearied that sometimes 
a kind of thoughtlessness sets in that is hard to dis- 
tinguish from neglect, that slowly crushes out finer feel- 
ings until the beautiful and the heroic have become 
a commonplace thing. 

AN ORCHARD MAN'S WIFE 

From the far away East she followed him 
Toward the golden dusk of the vast world's rim. 
He gave her his name and she gave her life, 
And they journeyed forth, the man and his wife. 
Where the yellow pines and the white firs grow, 
Where the lone peaks lift their eternal snow 
Through drifting clouds to the great blue dome, 
They took some land and they called it "home." 
And they gave their days to the ceaseless toil 
Which man must pay to the master soil ; 
The woman at home, the man in the field, 
Awaiting the years of the golden yield. 
Labored the man till the fading light, 
Labored the woman on into the night. 
And the slender hands grew thick and hard, 
And the white skin dark and rough and 

scarred — 
The hands of the woman who followed him 
Toward the golden dusk of the vast world's rim. 



21 







And she bore him children, girl and boy, 
Doubling her care and doubling her joy, 
Stinting along in that wonderful wise, 
Counting no labour a sacrifice, 
Cheering the man when his courage swayed, 
When he lost his grip and grew afraid, 
Bearing up often 'neath heart of lead 
When better fitted to be abed. 

Man of the field, is the likeness true, 

Does the woman of toil belong to you? 

The woman who gave up all and went 

Across the breadth of a continent 

To be a part of the general plan 

That makes up the dream of the orchard man — 

A comfortable sort of amiable chattel 

Along with his trees and barn and cattle, 

A splendid cook and mender of clothes 

And bracer of souls when the wrong wind blows ? 

Weary are you when the day is through, 
But what of another who's weary, too? 
Does the day of a man o'ershadow quite 
A woman's day and a woman's night, 
The countless steps that must be made 
Each fleeting hour, the tasks essayed, 
The strain of simply working away 



V&A&H 



K)C3i?SK>: 



Through the constant din of children's play, 
For dear as they are, these girls and boys, 
The noise of a child is still a noise? 

Have you reached the place where you're 

satisfied 
When you're dead dog-tired, to see things 

slide — 
Letting her do what she has to do, 
Hither and thither, waiting on you? 
Or are you there with a ready hand 
To do what the moment may demand, 
Easing her hour and making less 
The pain of her with your thoughtfulness? 

Man of the field, do you know the worth 
Of that priceless gift of all the earth — 
The love forsaking home and friend 
To be with you till the journey's end? 
Then look you well and harbor a care 
For the wearied one whose heart you wear. 
Forget her not for today and see 
You forget her not in the days to be, 
When the long, long lane has had its turn 
And the wage has come that she helped you 
earn. 



*3 




The little yellow man is a factor of the North 
West which must be reckoned with. There is some 
truth in the assertion that he is oftimes disliked, not 
by reason of his vices but for his virtues. It is the Jap 
whose miraculously groomed strawberry rows call to you 
from the roadway, whose cabbage plants look as if they 
had been dusted off each morning, and whose infinite 
and loving care have enabled him to foster growth 
against a host of threatening ills. He is wise to a 
degree. When he buys his seed this Spring, he does not 
go strong on the crops which were scarce last year, for 
that is just what everyone else will do. He plants 
what was plenty and cheap last year, for that will 
surely be neglected now. Almost every white-man's 
orchard has its Jap. The following rhyme is dedicated 
to one Jap in particular. 

KA-ICHI 



Have you heard of our little Ka-ichi? 

Ka-ich Watanuki the Jap? 
He's hoeing down there in the berries 

In khaki and white canvas cap. 
Ka-ich of the pompadour bristles, 

Ka-ich of the red and tan skin, 
Ka-ichi the human machine-man, 

The machine with the always-on grin. 

All the long summer through he's been at it. 
And the plunk of his hoe's never done, 

Like the gleam of a heliograph 
Is the glint of his cap in the sun. 

*4 



The chores that Ka-ich gets away with, 

And the unnumbered stunts he puts through — 

Well, it tickles you silly to find 

A thing now and then he can't do. 

But whether it's picking or packing, 

Dish-washing or doct'ring the pup, 
Or splitting the kindling or scrubbing, 

Unhitching or harnessing up, 
Or cutting your hair — he can do it — 

Or helping to get the hay in, 
Just you say, "Well how goes it Ka-ichi?" 

And he's there with the always-on grin. 

And that Jap, would you think it, this Spring 

Went shares on a crop near Mount Hood, 
And when the returns came along, 

He was eight hundred bucks to the good. 
Gets his papers each day in the mail, 

"Nippon Herald" and "Hood River Star," 
And is just as well up on the war news 

As most of the rest of us are. 

Gets his letters, his calls on the phone; 

In short, Watanuki & Co 
Is about the dogondest successful 

Corporation round here that I know. 

*5 







And we treat him with proper respect, 
As a shining scion of his race, 

'Gainst the time when our little Ka-ichi 
Will be bossing the Ka-ichi place. 

Fact is, if this ranch keeps on going 

Behind like it's done, and the thrifty 
Ka-ich on his rice keeps progressing 

And salting each month a cold fifty, 
Well ! a telescope wouldn't be needed 

Or a very unusual long head, 
To see where yours truly quits ranching 

To work for the Jap there instead. 



26 



A DRY MOOLY IN STRAWBERRY 
TIME 

Picture a place where the strawberries grow 

Acre on acre and row upon row; 
Picture a meadow all carpeted over 

With clover, just bobbing and beautiful 
clover ; 
Picture a pedigreed Alderny beast 

Browsing all day on the honey-topped feast ; 
Picture a mother who's willing to bake 

Short-cake that only a mother can make — 
Then answer me true if it isn't a crime 

To have a dry mooly in strawberry time. 

In strawberry time when you like to dream 
Of pouring out cream in a golden stream, 

Dripping and trickling and splashing down 
Over a crust of the richest brown, 

Into the drooly and mottled flood 

Of short-cake and sugar and strawberry 
blood. 

Picture your having an automobile 

In perfect condition except for one wheel; 
Picture a motor-boat built for the race 

Dry-docked on Sahara's unlimited space; 

»7 



SSSM 




Picture yourself gotten up in your best 

And nowhere to go to when once you were 
dressed ; 
Picture a hammock, soft breezes, a moon, 
And no sighing mortal with whom you could 
spoon ; 
Picture ad lib — and the worst is sublime 
Beside a dry mooly in strawberry time. 

In strawberry time when you like to dream 
Of pouring out cream in a golden stream, 

Dripping and trickling and splashing down 
Over a crust of the richest brown, 

Into the drooly and mottled flood 

Of short-cake and sugar and strawberry 
blood. 



z8 



OUR NOO VICTROLIE 

Our Hank he swears no joy compares 

With our "bran noo victrolie." 
"Wind up the crank" now then says Hank, 

"Dodblast yer melancholie ! 
Throw on a log there, mind the dog there, 

Now let her blaze by Cracky ! 
Then reach yer hand up on yon stand 

And hand me my tobaccie." 

"Let's see, by Gee ! what will it be ? 

Say somethin' light and airy? 
Put on that long grand oprie song 

By Faust and Cavalieri. 
When that's ground out, best look about 

For somethin' sad, by Golly! 
That dum-de-dum you used to hum 

From Huffman's Barcarollie." 

And now our Gene starts the machine, 
The records he keeps changing, 

While Marion's fixed the ones he's mixed 
And needs her re-arranging. 

A yellow heap of dog asleep, 
A snorgling in his coma, 

29 



While Hank he breathes out floating wreathes 
Of "Lucky Strike" aroma. 

"And now dod drat it, while yer at it, 

Stick in that seven dollar 'un, 
With that sextette where they all get 

A-stampin' 'round and hollerin'. 
Them other hits that cost six bits, 

You might mix in the chowder, 
Then tear off one that's got some fun 

From that there Harry Lauder. 

"I tell you now you must allow 

It's going some by Jingoes, 
To jest sit here and cock yer ear 

And listen how that thing goes. 
To boss yer show right frum the go, 

The whole blagoned caboodle, 
What strikes you most frum Hamlet's ghost 

To 'Palms' and 'Yankee Doodle.' 

"To think of all that high-toned gal- 
blamed crowd so proud and haughty, 

Like that there Shooman Hankey woman, 
Carooso, Eames and Scotti, 

That never knew me — no, nor you — 
A plunkin' down and landin' 

30 







fo/)£}b*££>. 



Right here by Gum, in our own hum 
On equal social standin'. 

"Now stick yer best in, Emmy Destin, 

Them birds frum Pagliaggi, 
Or somethin' dreamy frum Bohemie; 

Don't let it git too draggy. 
And when you git that through, best quit, 

Heigho, I feel like dozin' — 
And one more thing, run down that spring 

Before you finish closin'. " 



31 




Greatest of all the trials with which the orchard 
man has to contend is the little pocket-gopher. His 
inroads are relentless. He is the arch-enemy and prince 
of plagues. Here and there at irregular intervals, 
white rags, tied to the tops of tall sticks,' wave among 
the growing trees. Each marks the place where a 
gopher trap is set. 

AT THE SIGN OF THE WHITE RAG 

You little velvet Devil thing, 

And so you're caught at last ! 
You stuck your head into the hole 

And snap ! it held you fast. 
A muffled squeak, a drop of blood, 

One weak, convulsive kick, 
And o'er your grave the wind will wave 

A white rag on a stick. 

Those tireless claws are stilled that delved 

So deeply in the earth, 
And once more you will pass into 

The soil that gave you birth. 
You did not know the harm you wrought, 

You lived and digged — just so 
Your fathers lived and digged who died 

Ten thousand years ago. 

You make your tunnels through the ground — 
The law of old still stands — 

3* 



nth 




'o^^ 



You ravish and you undermine 

The fairest of our lands. 
Yet I'm content the good God knew 

Well what he was about, 
That day he shaped the destiny 

You blindly follow out 

With all the myriad crawling things, 

Part of his universe. 
Your purpose crossed with Man's and hence 

It falls out you're a curse. 
And he will fight you, velvet thing, 

For you're beneath his ban, 
And I, I hope he wins because 

It happens I'm a Man. 

Five years of war on every stretch 

Of new-cleared orchard land, 
Until each tree has garnered strength 

And sinews to withstand; 
Five years of Hellish energy 

In endless claw-dug holes, 
Five years of plot and counterplot 

And damning gopher souls. 

O'er every galleried battle-field 
A hundred rags will wave, 

33 



And one will mark a steel trap set, 

Another one a grave. 
Five years of strife 'twixt Man and Beast, 

A goodly price to pay, 
And all because each had to live 

According to his way. 



34 




THE GAMBLERS 

We cleaned our berry crop today, 

Just twenty crates — no more. 
Some packed out five to each top row, 

And the bigger ones topped four. 
We shipped out twenty measly crates 

Of Extra Fancy brand; 
One third the yield we might have had 

From a fairly decent stand. 
(And the Lord knows how we labored for 

That fairly decent stand.) 

Three dust-begrimed and sun-baked miles 

They hauled those twenty crates 
Down to the freight car siding where 

The fruit inspector waits. 
He'll rip the top from two or three 

And if there's nothing wrong, 
He'll be less fussy with the rest 

And pass the lot along. 
(He'll ease his conscience with each rip 

And pass the lot along.) 

They ran a trifle small last week 

And the greens he said must stop; 
It's hard to get a perfect pack 

35 



Out of a Jonah crop. 
And down there in Chicago 

The middle-man will sell 
The berries we shipped out from here, 

To a bang-up, swell hotel. 
(The crates we filled with fours and fives, 

To a hang-up, swell hotel.) 

There some rich chap who deals in stocks 

Will very probably pay 
The waiter most as big a tip 

As the picker made all day, 
For the stock-made man, though things go 
wrong, 

And best bets turn to flukes, 
Lives not by dint of stint, but plays 

The living game — de luxe ! 
(Heeds not such trifles for he plays 

The living game, de luxe!) 

He risks his gold but does not make 

His body take its share, 
And never plays a stake, I'll bet, 

Like those red berries there. 
If shifting markets cost him sleep, 

At least his bed is warm — „ 
He does not have to watch all night 

36 



To keep his stocks from harm. 
( Watch through the chill, dark, dragging hours 
To keep his stocks from harm.) 

He does not have to keep alive 

For five nights on the run, 
The smudge-fires when the frost hangs low 

From dusk till rise of sun. 
He does not have to hoe for weeks 

'Neath light that beats like flame, 
And then find after all, the frost 

Has got there just the same. 
(The death-winged frost with ice-chilled breath 

That got there just the same.) 

The frost that stunted, turned to core, 

The fruit you hoped to save, 
The fleshless, seedy, misshaped things, 

That drove you like a slave. 
The broken pledges of the flowers, 

All fragrant in the breeze, 
In pollen time, so white they bloomed 

Beneath the apple trees. 
(In pollen time, when rippling rills 

Flowed 'neath the apple trees.) 

A gamble straight, that's what you take. 
On yonder sloping field 

37 




The acres run about like yours, 

But not like yours the yield. 
They shipped out sixty crates today 

Of mostly four-four rows — 
Just why they didn't catch the nip, 

The great Almighty knows. 
(Why you're the scape-goat, they immune, 

The great Almighty knows.) 

The man who deals in stocks and wears 

His smart-cut tailored suits, 
And the man who irrigates his fields 

In khaki and old boots, 
Are gamblers both, but he who spends 

His hours in dust and mud, 
Stakes up against the one man's gold, 

The other's flesh and blood. 
(Stakes up against his life of ease 

The other's flesh and blood.) 



3« 



WHEN FRANCES BRINGS HER VIOLIN 

When Frances comes to our house 

We watch her coming through 
The trail, and know it's Frances for 

She's always dressed in blue. 
We're all so glad when Frances comes 

And everyone stays in, 
Because we know she's going to bring 

Along her violin. 

When Frances comes to our house 

We range ourselves around 
On cushions or the hammock or 

The steps or on the ground. 
And then the stars they perch themselves 

Above their favorite trees, 
The bats, expectant, nutter round, 

The crickets cross their knees. 

When everybody's fixed at last 

And settled in his place, 
Someone says "well!"— then Frances takes 

And opens up her case. 
A ping, a squeak, a tightened creak, 

And now beneath her chin; 
Then, oh, what joy when Frances starts 

To play the violin. 




&&&S 



The "Kerry Dance" we all so love ! — 

Oh, sweetly flowing air — 
While rythmic'lly we just can see 

Her elbow bowing there. 
"Now Frances dear," says Mother in 

Her arm-chair near the door, 
"The 'Traumerai' you played last night 

Do let us have once more." 

From song to song, old melodies, 

Long treasured through the years, 
Unfettered now, break forth anew 

Upon our list'ning ears. 
Fond melodies, dear memories, 

Hopes still of things to be, 
Come crowding in as Frances plays 

With tuneful witchery. 

To "Auld Lang Syne" swift bends the bow, 

Sways now to "Old Madrid," 
Till Frances takes her violin 

And softly shuts the lid. 
Then down the trail we make our way 

By sage and chincapin, 
Beneath the stars, with Frances there 

'Long with her violin. 



40 



Fear of the dark — who has not had it? The dark 
is filled with strangeness and uncertainty, the fear that 
follows us however loud we whistle, however fast we 
walk. Our valley is a strangely fearsome place; bunch- 
firs drooping with long, hairy growths; bleached and 
twisted bony snags ; up-rooted stumps, burned and black, 
with gorgon-heacls and sprawling arms, and against 
them the bobbing white of elder and spirea. Anon the 
gloom, the pale of the moon, the scattered voices of the 
night — is it strange that the spirits of the past should 
linger here? 



THE GHOSTS OF MULTNOMAH 

There are ghosts in this land of Multnomah, 

Grotesque ghosts and ghosts in their shrouds, 
There are ghosts in the brush and the woodland 

And ghosts in the swift-moving clouds. 
In this land of Multnomah they're sleeping, 

They sleep while the day is still light, 
But when the shades fall they go creeping, 
Go stealthily, eerily creeping 

Out into the shapes of the night. 

There are ghosts in this land of Multnomah, 

Gray witches on galloping nags, 
Fleet-foot from the Kingdom of Nowhere 

Sweeping low o'er the blue mountain crags. 
You can see them bear on to the Westward, 

Green, garish the sky is and vast 

41 



Is the host of the storm that is nearing, 
With mutter and rumble is nearing, 
Till its fury is spent in the blast. 

There are ghosts in this land of Multnomah, 

Their voices at night you may tell 
Like the creak of a half-fallen timber 

That rocks in the fork where it fell. 
Or you hark to their far away moaning 

As form calls to form in the gloom, 
Moaning and weariful, beck'ning, 
Tossing and swaying and beck'ning, 

Like the dead who have gone to their doom. 

There are ghosts in this land of Multnomah, 

Black, grimacing heads between pale 
Diabolical skulls that go bobbing 

Along on both sides of the trail. 
There were stumps and white blooms of spirea 

Just there where the katydid sings, 
But they never are there in the star-time 
And the path that I take in the star-time 

Is fraught with most horrible things. 

There are ghosts in this land of Multnomah, 
That tangle of mummyfied hair, 

4* 



How it droops from the spectre that wears it, 
Bent low like a wraith in despair. 

There's a fir that stands there in the day-time 
With bright clumps of green in the sun, 

But the spirit that lurks in the moonlight, 

In the haunting and dubious moonlight, 
Is always a sorrowful one. 

There are ghosts in this land of Multnomah, 

And the living know not of their graves ; 
Ghosts of the tortured, of chieftains, 

Of infants and terrible braves. 
But I'm glad there are ghosts in this country, 

Although I don't like them until 
I can sit by our comfortable fireside, 
By our crackling and cheery, old fireside 

And shake off the creep and the chill. 



43 



THE BUZZARDS 

Behind our barn a fir wood grows 

And the trees are straight and tall, 
And there's one that's dead and seared and 
black 

Looks down upon them all; 
And every day when the sun sinks low 

Behind the canyon's rim, 
Five buzzards come and settle down 

Upon its topmost limb. 

And you hear no sound as they circle 'round, 

Save the song of the evening breeze, 
As they sink to rest 'neath the canyon's crest 

And over the tall fir trees. 
Since break of day they've been away 

Far over the eastern range, 
Where they found a dog dead by a log — 

He died of the scurvy mange. 

Sometimes you look at the black fir bough 

And you see but one or two, 
The rest they lag by a range cow's corpse — 

For a month they've picked it through. 
But they'll be back e'er night has come, 

To watch from their black fir branch — 

44 



For nine pigs feed from the old white sow 
Down there upon the ranch. 

And the dying sun, it shows each one 

With a head all gory bright, 
As they tip and lurch on their lofty perch 

In the glow of the yellow light. 
Till over all, a dark'ning pall, 

The evening shadows lie, 
And through the gloom you see them still, 

Gaunt spectres 'gainst the sky. 



45 



CEDRIC 

In the tops of our whispering fir trees 

Down there at the edge of our lot, 
I am sure there must be an asylum 

For the bird folk whose minds are distraught. 
From each throat some fantastic obsession 

Rings abroad with incessant refrain 
In a way that now charms and now thrills you 

With the plaint of a wee, feathered brain. 

There is one who calls ever for "Cedric," 

Calls for "Cedric" the long summer day, 
Till the soul of you grieves for the singer 

Who could voice such a sorrowful lay. 
And who is the "Cedric" you wonder, 

Whom the lady laments in her song? 
Did he die like a knight in the tourney, 

Die striving to right a foul wrong? 

Was he slain in some woodland arena 

In the shades of a far away dell, 
While the blood on his gay little breastplate 

Trickled red on the moss where he fell? 
Now the song of the singer is broken, 

And "I did it, I did it" I hear, 

4 6 



In the tops of our fir boughs, "I did it" 
Rings wildly, hysterically, clear. 

'Tis the lilt of a soul that's done murder 

And he utters his desolate cry 
In the hope he may find absolution 

By unburd'ning his heart to the sky. 
Could it be that the one who slew "Cedric" 

In that unhappy moment was he, 
In the shadowy, green-vaulted chambers 

Up there in the top of our tree? 



♦7 



THE LAST STAND 

Where the woodlands halt on their mountain 
march 

And stand by their steep defiles, 
Where their stalwart chieftains call their truce 

And rest on their granite piles ; 
Where the ice-born rivers start to flow 

Toward the maw of the hungry sea, 
The outposts of the timber grow — 

The clan of the dwarf pine tree. 

With their roots entrenched in the creviced rock 

And their limbs worn white and bare, 
They've forged as near the eternal snows 

As a thing that grows may dare. 
And they've pitched their camp for their last 
long stand 

And they've flung their challenge wide, 
To the blasts that wrench and the frosts that 
freeze, 

Nor quarter have they cried. 

And their years are told by the centuries 

Till you see their bleached bones lie 
'Midst the alpine flowers when the Spring has 
come, 

4 8 




All pink in the western sky. 
And the Winter winds will sing their dirge, 

Whom they battled fair in life, 
While their comrades still will twist and toss 

In the throes of their endless strife. 



49 



ami 




When the deep snows have melted and the earth 
is warmed with the breath of Spring, the strawberry 
fields take on their stripes of brilliant green. Anon 
they are white with blossoms and the air is heavy with 
their fragrance; winds and bees are diligent bearing 
the pollen from plant to plant. It is the promise time 
of the blossomy earth. For these Spring days of plenty 
have they been tilled and watered and tilled again the 
long, long summer through. Our valley is awake with 
new life. Camp-fires blaze in the timber, there are 
ripples of laughter across the clearing. From the towns 
along the river they have come to our valley for a 
holiday, the glomer boys and girls — girls who scorn not 
overalls nor sun nor God's free air. 



THE GLOMERS 

Now do you know what glomers are? 
Well, spare your idle guesses, 
For glomers may wear overalls 
And glomers may wear dresses. 
Some glomers' cheeks are pink and soft, 
Some rough and tough and tan, 
And the overalls a glomer wears 
Don't always make the man. 
For glomers may be Jims or Jacks, 
Or Berthas, Janes or Marys, 
And all the work a glomer does 
Is just to glom the berries. 
Now berries may be glomed — that's yanked- 
By bending till your back 

So 



Gets warped up like a pretzel and 
Begins to creak and crack; 
Or by the hunker method with 
Your knees stuck way down in 
The earth until your knee-pans seem 
Projecting through your skin; 
Or with the cris-cross squat and lean 
You hump along the rows, 
But whatsoever way you try, 
You quickly change your pose. 
Then with your loaded carrier 
You shift your low estate, 
Assemble all your twisted parts 
And try to stand up straight. 
Then hie you to the packing house 
Where Dots, Irenes and Nancys 
Assort the "culls" and "snappers" from 
The "plain" and "extra-fancy's." 
And when you've had your ticket punched, 
You know at all events, 
Although you're wrecked beyond repair, 
You've made your seven cents. 
So much for glomers in the day 
And so much for their troubles ! 
When evening comes a glomer's woes 
Are mostly empty bubbles. 

5« 




DAYS OF THE YEAR 

The colors I love are as sands of the sea. 

But these are a few that are dear to me: 

The green of the moon as it climbs on high 

At the end of the day through a lavender sky; 

The cliffs of our canyon all ablaze 

With copper and gold in the sun's last rays, 

That turn to a shimmering pink the rills 

In the wet, brown soil of our strawberry hills ; 

The pale ash-white of the dead, ghost pines, 

The orange and amber of maple vines, 

The purple of lupin — and back of all 

The wonderful haze of a canyon wall. 

The green of an old frog pond I love, 

Glimpsing the blue from the sky above ; 

The flash that is flung from golden sheaves 

And the amethyst glow of cabbage leaves; 

The rustle of silver when poplars shake 

And the myriad hues of a coiling snake. 

The sounds that I love are as days in the year, 
But these are a few that I joy to hear: 
The song of the flume as it ceaselessly sings, 
The whirr and the flutter of pheasants' wings ; 
The softly-voiced sigh that just barely tells half 
Of the mother-cow's love for her newly born calf ; 

54 



The peep of a chick as it pecks away 
Through its shell-walled home to the light of 

day; 
The infinite peace of a tabby's purr, 
The chunk of the ax driving home in the fir, 
The split and the crackling, the deaf'ning sound 
Of the echoing crash when it hits the ground. 

The odours I love are as drops in a well, 
But these are a few that I joy to smell: 
The elders that bob at the turn of our lane, 
The mint by the meadow-path after a rain; 
The raspberries dangling red-ripe in the sun, 
The flowers tame or wild, are a joy every one; 
The incense of balsam, of new earth up-turned, 
The smoke in the night-wind when pitch stumps 
are burned. 

Color and sound and sense of smell, 
All in a world I love right well ; 
Morning or evening, moon or sun, 
Days of the year till the year is run. 



.55 



DAYS OF THE YEAR 

The colors I love are as sands of the sea. 

But these are a few that are dear to me: 

The green of the moon as it climbs on high 

At the end of the day through a lavender sky; 

The cliffs of our canyon all ablaze 

With copper and gold in the sun's last rays, 

That turn to a shimmering pink the rills 

In the wet, brown soil of our strawberry hills ; 

The pale ash-white of the dead, ghost pines, 

The orange and amber of maple vines, 

The purple of lupin — and back of all 

The wonderful haze of a canyon wall. 

The green of an old frog pond I love, 

Glimpsing the blue from the sky above ; 

The flash that is flung from golden sheaves 

And the amethyst glow of cabbage leaves; 

The rustle of silver when poplars shake 

And the myriad hues of a coiling snake. 

The sounds that I love are as days in the year, 
But these are a few that I joy to hear: 
The song of the flume as it ceaselessly sings, 
The whirr and the flutter of pheasants' wings ; 
The softly-voiced sigh that just barely tells half 
Of the mother-cow's love for her newly born calf ; 

54 




The peep of a chick as it pecks away 
Through its shell-walled home to the light of 

day; 
The infinite peace of a tabby's purr, 
The chunk of the ax driving home in the fir, 
The split and the crackling, the deaf'ning sound 
Of the echoing crash when it hits the ground. 

The odours I love are as drops in a well, 
But these are a few that I joy to smell: 
The elders that bob at the turn of our lane, 
The mint by the meadow-path after a rain; 
The raspberries dangling red-ripe in the sun, 
The flowers tame or wild, are a joy every one; 
The incense of balsam, of new earth up-turned, 
The smoke in the night-wind when pitch stumps 
are burned. 

Color and sound and sense of smell, 
All in a world I love right well; 
Morning or evening, moon or sun, 
Days of the year till the year is run. 



55 



OBSERVATIONS 

Last Sunday week when Brown's old mare 

Got brain-storm near the church down there, 

And broke three dozen new-laid eggs 

And one of Mrs. Julia's legs, 

And in a quite unconscious state 

They laid her down before the grate 

Of Brigg's Hotel, 

Our Jim says: "Well — " 

That is as soon as he had heard 

The news of how the thing occurred, 

"I don't remember havin' seen 

A place where I'd a rather been 

Unconscious in, than — well ! 

In Brigg's Hotel!" 

When one of those big Whoop-mobiles 
Came rippin' gulches with its wheels 
Down 'round our lane and tried to scare 
Our heifer calf a layin' there, 
Which failin' in, they had to switch, 
A landin' in a two-foot ditch, 
Our Jim came saunterin' round that way 
In time to hear the woman say: 
"Of all outrageous things to be 

56 




Delayed by such stupidity; 
For cattle to be lying there 
Upon a public thoroughfare- 



You ought to be ashamed." Well Jim, 
He let her splutter on at him, 
Until he 'lowed the time was ripe 
And she'd 'bout reached her exhaust pipe, 
Then with a quiet sort of smile, 
Though he was tryin' hard the while 
To keep from bustin' in a laugh, 
"Why don't you tell that to the calf?" 

Once when a specialist was sent 

A lecturin' for the government, 

One night down there in Parkdale Hall, 

In his deducin,' he let fall 

A statement how there had been found 

Some wiggly germs beneath the ground, 

So small, that if placed end to end, 

'Twould take ten thousand to extend 

One inch — "Perhaps !" says Jim when they 

Were talkin' 'bout the thing next day, 

"But how the Heck with all their squirms, 

They get ten thousand wiggly worms 

As small as that, to hold right still 

And stiff — and end to end until 



57 




They're measured up, well now I think," 
Says Jim, a handin' me the wink, 
"That any man who'll swallow drool 
Like that's a fool." 



5« 







Old as is the child of man, equally old is the im- 
aginary playmate, that marvelously adjustable com- 
panion of our youthful days. Play-fellow John was 
the constant chum for over two years of a real little 
boy who lived on the slopes of Mount Hood, a land 
where the waving pines are the masts of ships and all 
things else are built of the empty powder boxes which 
the woodsmen have left behind them. 

PLAY-FELLOW JOHN 

In a vine-covered cabin on top of our hill 

Lives a dear little boy whom I know, 
And his wonderland lies by the banks of a rill 

Where the poppies and paint-brushes grow. 
And his eyes are the blue of the lupin, new 
blown, 

And his face is the freshness of dawn, 
As he plays all the hours of the day there 
alone — 

Except for his play-fellow John. 

He's the captain today on a wonderful trip, 

Is John, as they scud to the breeze, 
While the little boy pilots the powder box ship 

With John through the uncharted seas. 
Tomorrow it's toot ! and a loud choo-chi-choo ! 

For the engineer John, he is late, 
As the China Hill Lightning Express whizzes 
through 

59 



With its powder box cars full of freight. 

And, oh, he's so brave that it's always all right 

To go out with John anywhere — 
He killed fifty-nine cougars and coyotes last 
night 

And one great, big, brown grizzly bear. 
There are elephants there and crocodiles, too, 

And, the bear-skin he hung on the wall, 
And someday the boy with the two eyes of blue 

And John will go after them all. 

There are moments when John is just endlessly 
old 

And almost as high as a tree, 
While the very next day you are like to be told 

He's as young! — and just up to your knee! 
Sometimes he is married and has a dear wife 

With ninety-three children or more, 
Then again he leads, oh — just the loneliest life, 

In a hole 'neath the old cabin floor. 

And there's never a mortal in all the whole land 
Who has ever had one little view 

Of the protean John or has taken his hand, 
Save only the two eyes of blue. 

And no other mortal has ever yet heard 

60 



The sound of his voice — only he 
Who can conjure him back with a magical word 
From the shores o' Wherever-he-be. 

Still the play-fellow John I am sorry to say 

Is to blame for a host of misdeeds ; 
It was John who tore holes in some stockings 
today 
As they trudged through the wet, tangled 
weeds, 
And when no one's around save the two eyes of 
blue 
And John, oh, look out for the cake ! 
For the things that poor John will occasionally 
do 
When he's hungry, would make your heart 
ache. 
But the play-fellow John is a royal good soul; 
When you want him he's always right there, 
And he'll captain your ship or he'll fight — why 
the role 
Never matters, for John doesn't care. 
Oh, would that the friends of the long after- 
days, 
When the years of the poppies are gone, 
Were as trusty and dear in a legion of ways 
As the wonderful play-fellow John. 

61 




There is probably no quadruped so deservedly 
named as the pig. Other people may be pigs on occa- 
sion, but the quadruped pig is ever a pig. Strangely 
enough, the same instinct which prompts him to push 
everyone else aside so that he may be first at the 
trough, is the instinct which prompts him to snuggle 
closest to them when bed-time comes — the instinct of 
selfish, piggish comfort. When the sun has set and the 
air grows cold, you will see them sardine-wise, brood 
and brood in sizable groups, snoring their way into 
slumber-pig land. Obviously there must be one mem- 
ber of each group who sleeps next to the outside world. 
As the hours roll by in the chill of night, it starts to 
dawn on this particular pig that he is the goat. He 
rebels, tells the family that he'd like to get warm and 
this is where the trouble begins. 

WHEN THE OUTSIDE PIG GETS COLD 



When slumber shuts my wearied lids 

And all the world's asnore, 
When tribulations are at rest, 

And sleep is mine once more, 
'Tis then my soul is rudely hurled 

From Dreamland towers of gold, 
And the furies all seem let loose when 

The outside pig gets cold. 

When the outside pig gets cold, it's shift, 
Move over, make more space, 

And give some one who's nice and warm 
The outside piggy's place. 

62 



It's shove and punch and squeal and howl, 

But back into the fold 
The outside pig must come because 

The outside pig gets cold. 

When the outside pig gets cold, good night! 

For we've a hen-house, too, 
Where irate cackles join one long 

Crescendo cockledoo, 
Which, swelling to a symphony 

Upon the night unrolled, 
The false dawn greets, and all because 

The outside pig gets cold. 

When the outside pig gets cold, cheer up! 

For we've a barn out there, 
Where thump and trample now denote 

Two horses and a mare. 
Again they stamp — you see 'tis just 

Their way to curse and scold — 
For which you'd hardly blame them when 

The outside pig gets cold. 

When the outside pig gets cold, there's still 

Within the barn a cow 
Who's not so neutral she can keep 

Aloof in such a row. 

63 



So, gath'ring all her bovine breath, 

The lady now makes bold 
To give her mooly-mooly since 

The outside pig is cold. 

When the outside pig gets cold, of course 

With all the rest agog, 
'Twould seem most strange came there not forth 

Some statement from our dog, 
Who with reverberating howl 

Of mournfulness untold, 
Completes the anthem sent up when 

The outside pig gets cold. 

When the outside pig gets cold, 'tis not 

For me to close my eyes 
Till each performer's done his stunt 

And all the chorus dies. 
Then drowsily I fade away, 

Content that no alarm 
Will wrest me from my slumbers while 

The outside pig keeps warm. 



6 4 



Many are the phases of the higher agriculture which 
seem to a neutral unfair in the extreme. Providence 
instills the spirit of preparedness into all her creatures. 
Man, the high-priest of the new code, pronounces dis- 
armament, and every cow perforce becomes a pacifist. 
There is a de-horning of the innocents, the high-priest 
brings forth the caustic, and blood from the little 
stumps runs freely. Unfinished as a hornless cow may 
look, it should be remembered that neither she nor her 
Creator had anything to do with the matter whatso- 
ever. 



TOPSY CALF 

Once Topsy our calf 

Was only the half 

Of the size that she's got to be now, 

And you'd never have dreamed 

From the way that she seemed 

That she'd one day turn into a cow. 

Her legs wobbled so 

For she didn't yet know 

The way you're intended to work 'em, 

Which depends more or less 

On the kind of a stress 

That the joints are put to when you jerk 'em. 

Yet it wasn't ten days 
Till she found out more ways 
Of hoppin' and skippin' and turnin', 

6s 



Than she would have by rule 

In a regular school 

In ten years of diligent learnin'. 

The rotary-rip 

And the dip-run-and-skip 

And the flip-flopsy-topsy-calf trot — 

'Course some she just had 

From her mother and dad, 

But a lot she worked out on the spot. 

'Twas lucky, Mom said, 
She was born here instead 
Of somewhere like China or worse, 
Where a girl isn't worth 
From the time of her birth, 
Any more than her heathen dad's curse. 
But I guess though her luck 
Must have run quite amuck 
Of a snag when her horns tried to sprout, 
Which Dad he regarded 
Should both be retarded 
And not ever 'lowed to come out. 
But Mom, she maintained 
That horns was ordained 
To grow up and follow their bent, 
And that if molested 
They'd not be arrested, 

66 



But would grow where they never was meant. 

But Dad just the same 

Stuck up for his claim 

And got out his caustic and stuff, 

And rubbed it 'round some 

Where the horns was to come 

Till he guessed that he'd rubbed 'bout enough. 

So that's why I go 
Out each mornin' to know 
If the caustic affected the root, 
And to see if perchance, 
They've tried to advance 
Up 'round through the roof of her snoot. 
For think of how fierce 
It would be should they pierce 
Through her nose, and how awf'lly preposter- 
ous, 
If only the half 
Of our Topsy was calf 
And the rest of her roar in' rhinosterous. 



67 



THE LITTLE RUNT 

Say what do you think, old Sophie our sow 
Last Sunday turned into a mother, 

With six little dandy fine daughters and just 
One poor bantam runt of a brother. 

And the runt he got tucked in a box by the stove 
Where he kept up his delicate squealin', 

While Mom told him stuff that Dad said was 
guff 
But by rights it was just mental healin'. 

Which is makin' you think that you're sure goin' 
to grow 
Up into a fine pig or sow, 
And no matter how sickly you're feelin' you'll 
quickly 
Be lots better than you are now. 

But the treatment I guess somehow didn't take 
Or it all was too good to believe it, 

Or else he was maybe perhaps such a baby 
His heart was too young to receive it. 

So we toted him out in his poor little box 
And you just could see part of his face, 

68 







And we buried him under the crab-apple tree, 
That bein' the runtiest place. 

And a daughter got trampled on late Friday 
night, 
Which when you subtract from the seven, 
Leaves the mother just five of her folks still 
alive 
With a brother and sister in heaven. 

So now we keep hopin' for poor Sophie's sake 
That she'll suffer no more of fate's curses, 

Which if they should come — well I'll try and 
add some 
More sad and appropriate verses. 



69 



OUR MOLLY COW 

Next to our sow our Molly cow 

Is the best round our vicinity. 

Her pedigree is said to be 

Of high-born bovinity. 

In pastures green she's mostly seen, 

Her fragrant mouth all grassy chewed, 

Which mixed with mud she rolls to cud 

In peace and listless lassitude. 

At eventide with gentle stride 

And mangerward proclivity, 

She greets once more the old barn door 

And scene of her nativity. 

Six quarts at least comes from our beast 

With swishing-sweet rapidity, 

Each morn and night, a wondrous sight 

Of pure lactile fluidity. 

How kindly now of Molly cow, 
Or is it altruistic all, 
Her milk to give that man might live 
And wax so eulogistical? 
Not so I fear with Molly dear, 
Nor is her heart so tropical, 

70 



To munch away the livelong day 
From motives philanthropical. 

She chews because 'tis nature's laws 
Her tissues thus to fortify, 
While any brute the least astute 
Would rather live than mortify. 
And can you guess the sore distress, 
Discomfiture and jolly row, 
If no one came to draw that same 
Sweet, gushing milk from Molly cow? 



71 




Next to our sow and cow I think 
Our dog deserves the printer's ink. 
He's mostly hound and wholly tan 
And lives by getting what he can, 
But as it takes most all in sight 
For sow Sophia's appetite, 
What's left remaining round about 
Is scarce enough to give him gout. 

Yet were a choosing mine, somehow 
I'd rather be the dog than sow, 
For when Sophia's turned to hide, 
And ham and fat and bacon-side, 
Our dog will still enjoy his share 
Of grub and circumambient air, 
At night he sleeps before the logs, 
Which same's denied to cows and hogs. 
Once in a while he bears a bone 
Triumphantly away, alone. 
(This he inters in hopes it may 
Improve a bit when more passe). 

Milk, butter, cheese he may not yield, 
He can not haul nor plough a field; 
He can not lay an egg 9 our dog, 

74 



Nor furnish bristles like a hog; 

No produce yet of any sort 

Have we derived from our dog Sport, 

Which in the last analysis 

Amounts in fine to simply this : 

Materially, we must confess 

Our canine's utter uselessness. 

His value to a large extent 

Is purely one of sentiment, 

From which we glean no recompense 

In pecks or quarts or pounds or cents, 

But something which we all no doubt 

Can better feel than talk about, 

A something speechless, deep, that lies 

Down there beneath those big brown eyes. 

A something in the way he'll come 
And sort of rub against you some, 
Or settle on the hearth-stone there 
Almost beneath your rocking-chair 
And let you rub him from your seat 
Just gently with your stocking feet. 
Now and again he thumps his tail, 
At times a yelp with long-drawn wail, 
A subtle way he takes to tell 
That natures of the best rebel 

73 



When folks are careless to the point 
Or rocking on an elbow-joint. 

And thus it is that day by day, 

Our canine in his fool, dog way, 

Awake maybe or p'raps asleep, 

Without an effort earns his keep ; 

And in the same soft way I s'pose, 

With which he rubs against your clothes, 

He manages to sort of slide 

Right up against your heart inside. 

In fact the more you sift it out, 

The more you find that round about 

Our valley here, a purp just lives 

With all his purp perogatives, 

Collies, airedales, mongrels, hounds, 

On mostly sentimental grounds. 

Yet lest you think that I insist 
On temperaments that don't exist 
'Mongst folk who make no outward show 
Of inner things, suppose you go 
To Lone Bloke Ranch. Then look around, 
Ask what became of the old hound — 
The one the youngsters used to haul 
'Round backwards by the tail, and maul; 
With one game leg and just a fleck 

74 







Of white below his flabby neck — 
The one they found one morning dead 
Out in the snow behind the shed. 

Why, up there very foot of ground 
Seems yearning for that yellow hound. 
No bark through all the livelong day, 
No growl at night, nor deep, long bey- 
He's not much mentioned since he went, 
I guess you'd call it sentiment. 



75 



MY COUSIN'S HOUSE 

My cousin's house has shiny floors 

And slippy rugs and big glass doors, 

And goldfishes with wobbly things 

Hitched to their sides like angels' wings, 

And paintings and big silver urns 

And hanging baskets full of ferns, 

And broad front stair-ways where you should 

Step softly on the polished wood, 

Just with your toes, and never go 

Upon your heels — they dinge things so. 

My cousin's house it has a blue 

Nice outer room for breakfast, too, 

And another bigger inner 

Room that's used for lunch and dinner. 

And, oh, the vegetables and meat — 

You just could eat and eat and eat! 

Although you don't, because you see 

There's lots of things that won't agree, 

Like cucumbers with milk and such, 

Which youngsters' turns should never touch. 

My cousin's house it also hath 
A guest-room and a private bath, 
With crimson carpets all so clean, 

76 



There's nothing dropped that isn't seen. 

And when the window's raised at night, 

See that the curtain's pinned back tight, 

And when you get up, look about 

And don't leave your pajamas out, 

And turn the sheets and air the bed — 

It's things like that show how you're bred. 

My cousin's house is mighty swell 

For visiting — but living ! Well, 

I somehow think I'd rather strike 

A place that's not so perfect like, 

Where folks can slam a little more 

Or track some mud or bang the door, 

Commencing, ending every day 

More in an easy-going way. 

I guess there's just one place like that — 

Out where my Momsie Mother's at. 



77 



WHEN DAD GETS THE GRUMPS 

When Dad gets the grumps I am always so 
scared 

And I try to think what I have done, 
If it's something I did that I shouldn't, or if 

I should have but haven't begun. 
And I prick up my conscience to recollect 
whether 

I watered the Alderney cow, 
Or day before yesterday was it, or when 

That I pitched down the hay from the mow. 

When Dad gets the grumps there is something 
way down 
Inside of me starts up a thumpin', 
As I think of the carrots I should ought have 
thinned 
And wonder if that's why he's grumpin'. 
And my sins of omission, they start poppin' up 

Like spooks as I ransack my brain, 
And remember the weeds in the beets and the 
peas 
And the saw I left out in the rain. 

When Dad gets the grumps I am always so glad 
It's the pigs that have rooted the clover, 

78 



Or the horses have broke the corral down once 
more 
And tramped the alfalfa all over. 
To slump round for hours in the gloom of 
Dad's grouch, 
And then to once more draw your breath 
When you find it ain't you is like bein' released 
From a dead certain sentence of death. 

When Dad gets the grumps if he'd just stick 
up flags — 

Like for pigs, well a green one would do, 
With a white for the horses and maybe a black 

One would suit well enough when it's you; 
Instead of a glump, like a song without words, 

With the soul of you mashed all out flat, 
Unless perhaps maybe you're lucky enough 

To find in some way where you're at. 



79 



CHORES 

Of the chores I hate worst, guess the foremost 
and first 
Is to have to do strawberry pickin'. 
Like a hot, scorchin' waffle your neck burns so 
awful, 
With the sweat-bugs all buzzin' and stickin', 
And your back almost bustin' when up blows 
the dust in 
Your eyes and your ears and your nose 'an 
Then you look at Mount Hood and just wish 
that you could 
Be there where it's snowy and frozen. 

Still I'd rather pick berries than walk behind 
Jerry's 
Old haunches and just cultivate, 
Where the sun's even hotter because you have 
got ter 
Move on at a specified rate, 
Till you barely can drag through the dirt, and 
the nag 
In a cloud that's so thick you can't see, 
Turns a corner kerplunk and snap-bang goes 
the trunk 
Of a nice little Gravenstien tree. 

So 



Still that's nothin' like to the picnic you strike 

Washin' dishes and knives and forks till it's 
'Bout time for the gruely, cold grease and the 
drooly 

Burned pie-pans and sauce-pans and skillets ; 
When up through the clatter, a swishin' hot 
splatter 

From the platter you've dropped calmly flies 
And smathers the place in the top of your face 

That was once occupied by your eyes. 

I guess what I like 'bout the most is to hike 

Off to some shady place where I'll be 
Right there when I'm called yet stay where I'm 
sprawled, 
Hearin' them but them not hearin' me. 
For who knows if uncurbed and the mind un- 
disturbed, 
You might start thinkin' things when a kid, 
Which would be when worked out, just as useful 
no doubt 
As anything Edison did. 



81 



THE WAY TO BE GOOD 

Now the way to be good, says my mother to me, 

Is to not keep resolvin' too hard, 
But watch a lot closer the ones tha,t you've 
made, 
And just have your resolver on guard. 
And when folks get you crazy, don't fly off 
the bat, 
THEN resolve that you won't any more, 
But use all the strength that the new resolve 
takes, 
In the first place by not gettin' sore. 

She says that folks' brains are constructed like 
putty, 
Which whenever they're struck with a 
thought, 
Get a sort of a slit or a dent where it hit 

Whether anyone b'lieves it or not — 
And that whether you're wicked or whether 
you're good, 
Or whether you're both, mostly hinges 
On the number and kind of the thoughts that 
struck in 
To the places that's marked with the dinges. 

Si 



She says that the human mind's just like a 
house, 

With Conscience the Porter-man who 
Sits there by the door and only lets in 

What thought-folks it pleases him to — 
That he's just like a servant and if you don't 
wish 

Your house overrun with a mob 
Of riffraff and hoodlums you'd better instruct 

The Porter to tend to his job. 
But its wonderful, ain't it, to think of all that 

Goin' on up inside of your skull — 
Yet it's awful-like, too, when it's all up to you, 

And you feel so responsible 
For the dinges you get and the Porter-man 
there, 

And the thought-folks you must entertain, 
That sometimes do you know it just bothers me 
so, 

I'm sorry I've got any brain. 



83 



MY GROUCH 

I like a good grouch when I get it, 

Sea-deep and dark indigo blue, 
If it wants to crawl round, why I let it, 

Up and down me and all through and through. 

I like a good grouch when it's grounded 
On at least two or three things or more, 

With which I can be well surrounded 
And keep myself blame good and sore. 

I like a good grouch when I've got it, 
No chirpy cheer-up stuff for me, 

It can be just as grouchy, dodrot it, 
As ever it chooses to be. 

I like a good grouch when there's in it 
A something you know by the feel, 

Isn't going to wear off in a minute, 
A grouch that is steadfast and real. 

I like a good grouch that'll grab me 
And hold me in thrall like a vice, 

And when that kind comes knocking to knab me, 
You can bet it won't have to knock twice. 



8 4 




RHYMES AND LIMER RHYMES 



85 



THE DOODLEDOO 

Chickens is a funny thing, 

'Speshlly a hen or rooster, 
And don't do much of anything 

'Cept just what they've been used ter. 

The fam'ly name is Doodledoo, 
Though diff'rin' in the prefex — 

By addin' Cockle for the hes 
And Cackle for the she sex. 

What's called a rooster doesn't roost 
One bit more than the hen does, 

Hence hens deserve the rooster's name 
As much as rooster men does. 

They're good to eat — the Doodledoos, 

All 'cept what's deleterious, 
Like heads and feathers, feet and things, 

Which eatin' would make serious. 

The Doodles is a peaceful race, 

Although they do delight in 
Raisin' the mischief 'round the place 

And squabblin' some and fightin'. 



86 



GETTIN BORN 

When once a chic busts through a egg 

He gives three little squeals, 
Then works out backwards through a hole 

By kickin' with his heels. 

Or maybe he'll keep peckin' 'round, 
With now and then some cursin', 

Until his head pokes through and then 
Comes all his little person. 

Or like as not he'll puff his chest, 
A grunt and then some kickin' — 

He's standin' there out in the air, 
A promissory chicken. 



87 



THE SAW-FISH 

The Saw-fish he, lives in the sea, 
And saws out Iceberg Palaces ; 

He works all night by just the light 
Of Rorie-Borie-Alices. 

Also by day — 'tis just his way 

To show his perseverience, 
For like a brick he's learned to stick 

To jobs by long experience. 



THE FISH 

The Fish he is a submarine 

In shiny coat of mail 
And goes by wigglin' with his fins 

And jerkin' with his tail. 

They're always wet clean to the skins 
Although they don't take cold, 

Because the skins are water-proof 
On both the young and old. 



«9 



GOLDFISHES 

Most every animal that grows 
Is useful in some way I s'pose, 
Like horses, chickens, pigs — well they 
All earn their livin' in some way, 
But goldfishes is made to give 
People trouble while they live, 
Needin' water just like plants, 
Fresh each day for sustenance. 
Then one he will go and die, 
Sighin' first a little sigh, 
Mosyin' round the place a while 
With a half-dead sort of smile, 
Tryin' all the time to keep 
Right-side upward in the deep. 
Findin' useless what he's tried, 
He keels over on his side, 
Lookin' downward with one eye 
At the home he's bid good-bye; 
Other looks up at the new 
Happy land he's goin' to, 
Where beside a golden strand 
Swims a goldfish spirit band. 
If he's done no wicked things, 
Fins'll turn to angel wings, 
Flyin' round and singin' hymns 

90 



With the goldfish cherubims. 
So then when your fish you see 
Lookin' dead as dead can be, 
Don't be sorrowful because 
They obey just nature's laws — 
Happy now for evermore 
By that shiny, golden shore. 



9» 



The limerick "My Face" was first published in 
the Pittsburgh "Index" about '98, one of a series, and 
accompanied with a drawing of a bulldog. It was 
reprinted later in a small volume "The Smile on the 
Face of the Tiger" and afterwards in "The Home Book 
of Verse" published by Henry Holt. After his nom- 
ination for the presidency it was used on a number of 
occasions by Woodrow Wilson, at which time it found 
its way into numerous papers and periodicals through- 
out the country. After many vicissitudes and having 
been attributed to various sources, it is here given for 
the first time in some years under its rightful author- 
ship. 

MY FACE 



As a beauty I'm not a great star, 

There are others more handsome by far, 

But my face, I don't mind it, 

Because I'm behind it — 

'Tis the folks in the front that I jar. 



THE CHIN 

The chin it was made to give trouble, 

Either pimples or dimples or stubble, 

While some have the gall 

To not grow at all, 

While others come triple and double. 



92 



THE WAIST 

An imaginary line is the waist 

Which seldom stays long where it's placed, 

But ambles and skips 

'Twixt shoulders and hips 

According to popular taste. 



THE HAIR 

The ways of the hair they are various, 

Its career not a little precarious, 

Oftimes we may note 

One alone and remote — 

Then again it may be quite gregarious. 



THE NECK 

To the head set on top like a cobble 
The neck gives its rotary wobble. 
Often fat, often thin, 
Sometimes covered with skin, 
It also assists us to gobble. 



93 




LONGEVITY 



If I had a turtle's longevity 

I'd wed some rich widow with brevity, 

And when she had croaked, 

And our souls were unyoked, 

Live on with her wealth and my levity. 



ECONOMY 

If I had a billy-goat's turn, 

I sure would economize some, 

For I'd lunch on torn shirt, 

With worn shoes for dessert, 

And cut down my board bill, by gum! 



AGILITY 

If I had the legs of a flea, 

No traffic would e'er hinder me, 

For I'd just give one hop 

Over people and cop 

And light down where I wanted to be. 



f4 



5-S 




i§n» 



VEGETARIAN 

When a bachelor maiden named Sarah Anne 
Found a fly on her plate, she grew very an- 
gry, said she, "Waiter, 
Here's meat with by 'tater, 
And I am a strict vegetarian!" 



A LIMER-KICK 

If there's one time in life when I mutiny, 

'Tis under the head-waiter's scrutiny — 

Whether watching my manners 

In peeling bananas, 

Or merely to see if I loot any. 



FROM THE TURKISH 

Before the Right Rev'rend McNast, 
Lay a turkey who'd lived somewhat fast- 
"Just to think" said the bird, 
"After all that's occurred, 
I'm to enter the Clergy at last !" 



95 




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